Warlock, Maran, and Acolyte within the Fortress.
Sylvan rocked, but the Tribunals and Villagers had some very very
cool RP as well. Scions and that bizarre neutral only faction were around as well, and the players in either guild I ran into definately yacked a lot about their agendas and how yours was thwarting that.

Played a Maran, first Maran, first caballed character.

There was a cool, twin Goddess of magic worshipping, Storm
villager who attacked the Fortress to get at mages and the
item of the Warlocks. First time EVER meeting a giant mace
speccy, definately stuck in my mind.

Maran were TOLD to break laws, enter guilds(if the guild guard was not good aligned), enter any cabal ecetera to get at evil and defeat it. They were also instructed to do whatever they could to stop an evil act and if they could not assist to immediately seek aid from elsewhere within the cabal.

I knew nothing, had no idea of even where to go, but I tagged along with my weak butt spear/staff, whip/flail spec. Definately could aid from a control standpoint but man I could not hit worth beans. :P

Now to a strange bizarre present CF near you.

This time I have witnessed Maran who would rather not fight, Acolytes who would, people doing things that would have had the booted from Maran in them days.

Some of the best RP I witnessed came from Evils, my character's enemys.

Some of the strangest Imm actions in the game, back in the day the Imms tried to stay out of character affairs. They facilitated character development, now they seem to want to manipulate it. Subtle difference but seems the new batch O Imms are constantly involved in mortal matters.

I hear players saying things like PK, strength up gear, etc etc. Heck even I slipped up a couple times using non RP terms simply because it is so prevelant.

Some descriptions accepted these days at level twenty and beyond would have been yanked aside and given a polite "here is how to make a half decent description". Players were not told that they "did not have to have a role to do well"; they were told that having a role was a good thing and helped interactions.

There was talk about new things, revamps, and cool things all the time on the forums. Imms and players loved chatting about this and that, now Imms dictate and self congratulate on the forums. Hmm.. maybe that symptom is also shown by in game Imm involvement.

What I am getting at is that people are deleting, all ranges of characters, because CF is not nearly as player friendly as it used to be. I read the player deletion reasons on Dio's forums, and here. The majority are disgruntled and disenfranchised. Vets leaving off with words of contempt and disgust, not cool, not cool at all.

Oh well, Whilath, I guess you too ran into an unacceptable amount of in game bizarreness. I hope that maybe the Imms realize that the current trend of vets leaving is a bad thing. Them leaving disgruntled is worse because new players read forums. The need for five plus voting links on the mainpage should ring alarm bells too.

Good luck with your disertation. Come back maybe there will be some consistancy in the game again! Just like them old days.